I agree with towne32. An official release of Legacy trumps a fan based restoration, not only because the quality will be unmatched, but also because it can actually give Star Wars back to the people in a way that an illegal, underground release simply cannot. Every day I see requests from people wanting to know how to download the Silver Screen Edition - you know normal people like your Dad who just want to watch it, not geeks who already know how to use torrents and the usenet. They don’t know how to get it, and nobody can give them a simple “click here” to get it solution. If you are new to all this, there are a lot of hoops to jump through before you can find what you came here for.

Putting the original version of The Star Wars Trilogy back on store shelves preserves the film for everyone. Future generations need to see this, not because it’s better then the Special Editions (even though it is) but because it is a piece of film history that Lucas himself has so short-sightedly tried to re-write. The people who worked on the film, who won Academy awards for truly groundbreaking Visual Effects should be recognized for their achievements in this version of the film - not for a poorly rendered CGI version of Jabba that they had absolutely nothing to do with. Future generations of film students should be studying the original version of the film, and they should have something better than laserdisc era media to watch it on.

While we would all love to have that 2.0 version out there to “tide us over” until an official release, I think it would be very selfish to do so, particularly if by doing so we derailed a deal that could lead to us achieving the goal that this entire site was created for. So let’s delay that instant gratification for the few in favor of long term gratification for everyone.